The Indian Army is hoping to cash in on the success of its marksmen in international meets and land more medals in the shooting competition at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.
"For the last few years, the Army has adopted 'Mission Olympics', under which the sportspersons are given extensive training to prove their mettle at the Games, which yielded results in the form of silver medal won by Lt Col Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore in Athens," Col I J Peoples, Commanding Officer (CO) of Army Marksmanship Unit of Infantry School, MHOW said.
Under the Mission Olympics project, the Centre has sanctioned a budget of Rs 60 crore for 10 sports, including shooting, he added.
To accomplish the mission, world class shooting ranges are being constructed in Mhow where foreign coaches have been engaged to train the Army shooters.
"Although at present only one Army shooter Gagan Narang in air rifle has qualified to participate in Beijing, we expect at least three more shooters to qualify for the prestigious event," Peoples said.
Performance of the Army shooters at the recently held Masters Shooting meet was commendable as they scored more than 580 points, which was higher that many of the international shooters, Peoples said.
He expected Indian shooters to make an impact at the forthcoming major events like World Shooting Championship in July in Croatia, the Doha Asian Games in December and the World Cups in Brazil, Germany and Italy.
Havildar Vijay Kumar, a young shooter with little over two years of training, established a new Games record and the score shot by Subedar Pemba Tamang in the Commonwealth badge match (585/600) was a world class score achieved by only a couple of shooters, Peoples said.
He said the new import policy on shooting equipment would give a further boost to the sport in the country.
"The new policy is a welcome sign for budding shooters. Shooting is a sport where equipment matters a lot and without the upgraded weapon you cannot come up with a good score," he said.
"Now a marksman participating in the nationals and qualifying for the subsequent nationals is eligible for the import license that comprises one weapon and 15,000 cartridges in a year, all duty free," he added.
The Army was promoting junior shooters in the infantry kid club and about eight of ten of them would soon participate in the international tournaments also.
The identification of talent, screening, selection and training of shooters at AMU are scientifically done and the system has been evolved after in-depth analysis of shooting techniques, skill development and psychological aspects, Peoples said.
More from rediff